fair use

When Sarah Palin protested after gossip site Gawker posted pages from her upcoming book America By Heart, Gawker taunted her for her lack of knowledge about copyright law. But a federal judge has ordered Gawker to take the pages down temporarily.

When DailyFinance reporter Jon Berr's wife posted a brief video on YouTube of their 3-year-old son dancing to Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger," she never expected to become part of the complex fight over copyright and fair use on the Internet. Then came the warning email.

iPhone and e-Book users may be feeling a bit more liberated, following an announcement Monday that loosens the Digital Millennium Copyright Act provisions. Basically, the ruling means folks can legally disable the restrictive software controls on devices like Apple's iPhone or Amazon's Kindle.